Other special features. Embossed light gray concrete backsplash in the same color as the concrete countertops. Concrete floors. Custom blown-glass pendants. Stainless steel countertops on both sides of the range.

Designer secret. “Healdsburg gets very hot in the summer, and the clients wanted a serene and cool environment with very little color but that did not feel cold,” Juestel says. “So we mixed warm and cool materials, and used the fresh green of the leaves and vines in the vineyard as the fresh accent color.”

Designer secret. “The biggest thing we did to improve the space was include the patio doors at the back,” Lange says. “Otherwise the room would have felt very dark, and the feeling of the kitchen would be totally different.”

“Uh-oh” moment. “Because this home was divided into several apartments before we began construction, and also featured a very poor addition at the back, we had a very challenging issue with two different ceiling heights, which landed directly above the kitchen,” Lange says. “Thankfully, we were able to come up with a solution involving our contractor and some engineering that allowed us to maintain one uniform ceiling height. Otherwise things would have looked very odd.”

Homeowners’ request. “The kitchen needed to be both functional and one that we would want to live in, as it’s part of the open-concept main space of the home,” says homeowner Ashley Bailey. “As someone who loves to look at the everyday as art, I wanted to be able to enjoy the Russel Wright pottery I was handed down from my grandmother and great-grandmother.”

Cabinets. Custom riff-cut white oak with a tight, straight and even vertical grain. “The warm wood tone and even pattern complemented the modern interior,” says designer Lisa Knemeyer Skiles. “The color also played well with the crisp white walls and counters.”

Other special features. Open shelves for displaying a vintage dishware collection. Green patterned tile backsplash over the range. Polished concrete floors featuring a special mixture of river gravel aggregate. White oak butcher block island countertop that drops down to table height for a main dining area. Counter-depth refrigerator. Island shelves for storing and displaying cookbooks and objects. George Nelson-designed Bubble pendant light.

@DD, of course not. I read that the ancient poishing method used goat milk. I’m not sure what was used in the 1920s, but I owned a home that had a long flight of exterior terrrazzo steps that dated from that time, and the material was still pristine. The stairs were exposed to the elements and had seen who knows how many moving trollies thumping up and down them, over the decades, moving heavy appliances and large pieces of furniture. Yet there were no chips, cracks or signs of erosion or pitting. The gloss on the terrazzo was muted — it could have used a polishing — but both the stairs and landings were otherwise perfect.

I would think they would use silica (fine sand) to polish it and goat's milk as a finish coat - in thin coats it dries pretty clear but would not hold up to water (use a coaster!). Terrazzo has been round since ancient times in one form or another. Do you have a link for the goat milk polishing method?

Milk paint is a water based paint that anyone can make. It's been used for thousands of years. It can be made from any animal milk and lime with color pigments added. Good old borax is mixed with the casein, which is a protein in milk. The casein is also a preservative.

The goat was one of the early feral animals that became domesticated, so it figures that goat milk paint was common as a preservative finish. Cave drawings/paintings of 8000 years ago were done of milk, lime & earth pigments. King Tut's tomb had models and furniture found that were painted with milk paint. That's a long lasting paint! Very durable.

The durability (preservation) depended on the formula used. Some provided weatherproofing. Variations found included olive oil, eggs, animal glue, waxes and linseed oil. Some early 17th century painters improved the formula using warm walnut oil and lead oxide.

Today, milk paint is still used. However, one needs to be careful of the formula. New water based casein paint uses rubber and styrene aka Kem-Tone, the first latex paint. Others added lead and mercury and other solvents now known as VOCs and HAPs.

Some modern companies continue to offer Milk Paints with casein protein, lime, clay and earth pigments. It's dry, so just add water.